I'm motivated to re-tool my business plan for 2009 around a set of core values. Much will remain, but I want to make sure our plan is aligned just right with the values we want to espouse moving ahead. Not the easiest task. Here's what I have so far. I'm going to have my team critique, modify and add to.
Our Agency Values
1) People First, Profits Second
2) We always follow up.
3) We always perservere
4) We're transparent with eachother and clients
5) When we screw up, we quickly own it and make it right
6) We don't take ourselves too seriously
7) We ask good questions, every time.
8) We embrace learning and opportunities to share
9) We care for eachother and our clients
10) We have an abundance mentality
Sunday, December 21, 2008
2008 Christmas Letter
I have so much trouble with these things every year. Business is always good, the kids are always great, and the marriage is always wonderful, right? Ha. Yet again, here we have the proverbial Christmas letter. I tried to keep it as real as possible. Cheers.
Holiday Greetings from the Nordyke's
It's hard to even begin writing a Christmas letter without succumbing to cliche. I'll give it my best shot though (Ha.)
We're rolling in to this Christmas with the lowest balances in our bank accounts that we've seen in several years. Aren't business owners all supposed to be rich? Or what about the old trueism that "if you're looking for your insurance agent, you can find him on the back nine"? We really can't complain though- we've got a warm house, with a mortgage that gets paid on time each month, cupboards full of food, and we're all pretty healthy despite a 3.5 year old that sometimes acts like an alien.
I had two babies this year, fortunately I only had to give birth to one, and it should be profitable long before age 18. More on the agency later. First let me tell you about Jack.
Jack was born on April 24th like a bat out of hell. The entire labor was 1 hr. Cara's water broke around 8:30pm. By the time we had packed and raced up the hill to the hospital, it was 9. And at 9:26 Jack Xander Nordyke was born. Without an epidural- Cara didn't really like that part. I've got to hand it to her though, she was an absolute champ. One of those moments us guys have where we realize our wives are way tougher than we are.
Jack has turned out to be a wonderful kid. I had pretty much resolved that Jack would be our last. Everyone told us after Lily that our day would come, and the second one would be a nightmare. He's been a fantastic sleeper, a good eater, and altogether has a great personality. He's definitely Dad's boy. Whenever I'm around he can't take his eyes off me. That's kind of fun. He's also a huge smiler. Who knows, maybe we'll have another one after all. Or not.
Lily turned three in June. She's doing everything a typical three year old does- talks until mom and dad are going insane, destroys things just for fun, memorizes everything, even the stuff you wish they hadn't, and has a knack for spilling beverages. In addition to that, she's uber-bright. Many times Cara and I hear her say something, and we just look at eachother in disbelief. She's also super affectionate and kind. It's not uncommon for her to meet one of our friends, and upon them leaving to go home, beg them for a hug and kiss. Nearly every shopping excursion or trip out includes her walking up to random people and asking them for their name. It's possible she'll turn into quite the Cutco-selling machine.
Cara has shifted to kind of a nice schedule. It's taken some getting used to, but it allows us to still make a fair amount of money, but have her at home most of the time with me and the kiddos. She now works every Monday from 7a to 7p, and every other Saturday and Sunday, also from 7 to 7. Every other week, it's quite intense, but at least I'm able to be home most of those weekends to jump in and play Mr. Mom. Okay I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a lot of help from my parents, inlaws and my younger sister Lindsey. They have been absolute life-savers. We still have not had to use any non-family daycare, and we feel really fortunate for that.
Cara's also taken up a big interest in sewing. Recently she's been taking a sewing class at OSU. Every Thursday she carts around her Singer and bag of stuff. She's actually got a real talent for it. Our windows have possibly the coolest curtains in Corvallis, and Lily has a super-cute dress or two that Cara has sewn. She's also made several arts and crafts-style dolls and even given a few as gifts, to a warm reception. Lily also started pre-school this year, which was a nice change of pace for Cara, allowing her to grab some me-time, run errands, or just take a breather with only one munchkin in tow. Often times, you'd find her mid-morning or mid afternoon at the craft/fabric store. Then, later in the evening between 8 and 10ish she's be busy over her sewing machine.
Quick intermission- My parents moved from their house of 25 years. They made the mistake of asking us to store their wine fridge until they've moved into their new house. We've had a lot of great wine to enjoy as part of our "storage fee".
As far as me, it's been a really gratifying year. I spent January through March in Tillamook, Oregon, apprenticing with a insurance agent there. He has a couple homes, one in Oceanside, and one in Rockaway Beach, so for the duration I stayed in his 4 bedroom house across from the beach in Rockaway. It was an awesome two months. I took full advantage of my per diem by eating at the Beach Bite almost nightly. Really good fish and chips. The north coast is a really beautiful stretch of scenery. After work each day, I took my camera out and hunted for a view before sunset. Lots of great pictures.
In April I started my second business, and by July 1st, we were officially Chris Nordyke Insurance. Our first six months have gone well, and I've been really fortunate to get some great team members. I'm excited about 2009, with plans to hire another team member, possibly two. If you know someone awesome, send them my way.
In addition to the agency, I continue to spend a lot of time in the community doing not for profit stuff. Probably 25% of my time. It brings me a lot of pleasure and fortunately works well with the type of business I am in. I've continued working on SpeakerLunch and Young Professionals, and recently rotated off the supervisory committee at OSU Federal. With every meeting and event, It mostly feels like hanging out with friends.
The end of the year is a great time for reflection. For us, we find ourselves wanting to be more content with exactly where we are at. Because it's good just the way it is. We would like to have Cara work less. We'd also love to travel this next year. More than anything, we really want to carve out more time with friends and family.
Thanks for enduring our update. We always love reading everyone else's.
You can find Cara on Facebook as caranordyke and via email as caranordyke@gmail.com and via cell phone as 541.990.0732
You can find me just about anywhere online. It all just sort of accumulates. chrisnordyke on Facebook, chrisnordyke on Twitter, chris.nordyke@gmail.com for email, my cell at 541.990.8050, and if you'd like me to help on the insurance side, call me at 541.452.5200 or email me at chris.nordyke.mrrx@statefarm.com
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
The Nordykes
Holiday Greetings from the Nordyke's
It's hard to even begin writing a Christmas letter without succumbing to cliche. I'll give it my best shot though (Ha.)
We're rolling in to this Christmas with the lowest balances in our bank accounts that we've seen in several years. Aren't business owners all supposed to be rich? Or what about the old trueism that "if you're looking for your insurance agent, you can find him on the back nine"? We really can't complain though- we've got a warm house, with a mortgage that gets paid on time each month, cupboards full of food, and we're all pretty healthy despite a 3.5 year old that sometimes acts like an alien.
I had two babies this year, fortunately I only had to give birth to one, and it should be profitable long before age 18. More on the agency later. First let me tell you about Jack.
Jack was born on April 24th like a bat out of hell. The entire labor was 1 hr. Cara's water broke around 8:30pm. By the time we had packed and raced up the hill to the hospital, it was 9. And at 9:26 Jack Xander Nordyke was born. Without an epidural- Cara didn't really like that part. I've got to hand it to her though, she was an absolute champ. One of those moments us guys have where we realize our wives are way tougher than we are.
Jack has turned out to be a wonderful kid. I had pretty much resolved that Jack would be our last. Everyone told us after Lily that our day would come, and the second one would be a nightmare. He's been a fantastic sleeper, a good eater, and altogether has a great personality. He's definitely Dad's boy. Whenever I'm around he can't take his eyes off me. That's kind of fun. He's also a huge smiler. Who knows, maybe we'll have another one after all. Or not.
Lily turned three in June. She's doing everything a typical three year old does- talks until mom and dad are going insane, destroys things just for fun, memorizes everything, even the stuff you wish they hadn't, and has a knack for spilling beverages. In addition to that, she's uber-bright. Many times Cara and I hear her say something, and we just look at eachother in disbelief. She's also super affectionate and kind. It's not uncommon for her to meet one of our friends, and upon them leaving to go home, beg them for a hug and kiss. Nearly every shopping excursion or trip out includes her walking up to random people and asking them for their name. It's possible she'll turn into quite the Cutco-selling machine.
Cara has shifted to kind of a nice schedule. It's taken some getting used to, but it allows us to still make a fair amount of money, but have her at home most of the time with me and the kiddos. She now works every Monday from 7a to 7p, and every other Saturday and Sunday, also from 7 to 7. Every other week, it's quite intense, but at least I'm able to be home most of those weekends to jump in and play Mr. Mom. Okay I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a lot of help from my parents, inlaws and my younger sister Lindsey. They have been absolute life-savers. We still have not had to use any non-family daycare, and we feel really fortunate for that.
Cara's also taken up a big interest in sewing. Recently she's been taking a sewing class at OSU. Every Thursday she carts around her Singer and bag of stuff. She's actually got a real talent for it. Our windows have possibly the coolest curtains in Corvallis, and Lily has a super-cute dress or two that Cara has sewn. She's also made several arts and crafts-style dolls and even given a few as gifts, to a warm reception. Lily also started pre-school this year, which was a nice change of pace for Cara, allowing her to grab some me-time, run errands, or just take a breather with only one munchkin in tow. Often times, you'd find her mid-morning or mid afternoon at the craft/fabric store. Then, later in the evening between 8 and 10ish she's be busy over her sewing machine.
Quick intermission- My parents moved from their house of 25 years. They made the mistake of asking us to store their wine fridge until they've moved into their new house. We've had a lot of great wine to enjoy as part of our "storage fee".
As far as me, it's been a really gratifying year. I spent January through March in Tillamook, Oregon, apprenticing with a insurance agent there. He has a couple homes, one in Oceanside, and one in Rockaway Beach, so for the duration I stayed in his 4 bedroom house across from the beach in Rockaway. It was an awesome two months. I took full advantage of my per diem by eating at the Beach Bite almost nightly. Really good fish and chips. The north coast is a really beautiful stretch of scenery. After work each day, I took my camera out and hunted for a view before sunset. Lots of great pictures.
In April I started my second business, and by July 1st, we were officially Chris Nordyke Insurance. Our first six months have gone well, and I've been really fortunate to get some great team members. I'm excited about 2009, with plans to hire another team member, possibly two. If you know someone awesome, send them my way.
In addition to the agency, I continue to spend a lot of time in the community doing not for profit stuff. Probably 25% of my time. It brings me a lot of pleasure and fortunately works well with the type of business I am in. I've continued working on SpeakerLunch and Young Professionals, and recently rotated off the supervisory committee at OSU Federal. With every meeting and event, It mostly feels like hanging out with friends.
The end of the year is a great time for reflection. For us, we find ourselves wanting to be more content with exactly where we are at. Because it's good just the way it is. We would like to have Cara work less. We'd also love to travel this next year. More than anything, we really want to carve out more time with friends and family.
Thanks for enduring our update. We always love reading everyone else's.
You can find Cara on Facebook as caranordyke and via email as caranordyke@gmail.com and via cell phone as 541.990.0732
You can find me just about anywhere online. It all just sort of accumulates. chrisnordyke on Facebook, chrisnordyke on Twitter, chris.nordyke@gmail.com for email, my cell at 541.990.8050, and if you'd like me to help on the insurance side, call me at 541.452.5200 or email me at chris.nordyke.mrrx@statefarm.com
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
The Nordykes
Saturday, December 20, 2008
out of order- how not to kill the sale or delay a friendship
Every once in a while, we all do something that runs counter to our normal mod us operand i. Something that afterward, we end up feeling really embarrassed about. Thursday at Downward Dog was one such night for me.
A group of us decided to get together for happy hour, and 8 or 10 showed up. Good times. I met a few new people, and had a great time hanging with friends, mostly talking business.
One of the newcomers was a new business owner in town. I'd heard about him through some other contacts and had wanted to get in touch with him to find out what he was doing for his business insurance, a specialty of mine.
We got a chance to meet and chat for a minute or two and I popped the question, " by the way, who do you have taking care of your insurance for the office?" I hoped he would say that he'd not taken care of it- a chance for me to help. Unfortunately, he had already set it up as a requirement of the bank he got his loan through.
Normally, this is the point at which I would gracefully offer myself as a resource if he ever had questions, tell him it's great to meet him, and then transition to talking about some community groups he might be interested in getting involved with, talk with him about his family, and maybe introduce him to others at the event. I'd then make a note in my blackberry later, to follow up on the insurance thing a few months from now- hopefully after I've hung out with him at other events between now and then.
Unfortunately, I was stirred by my sales training of old, and went into a little bit of objection-handling, part of sales 101. I explained to him that even though he already has obtained coverage through someone else, that he still has the freedom to look at other quotes. If our coverage makes more sense, we can easily satisfy the banks requirement- we help people with that all the time. I then went in for an easy close and asked if I could follow up with him to take a look at his current coverage. He declined nicely, but the body language was clear- I'd been one of those annoying sales guys. Yikes.
I'm not sure what got into me. I am often guilty about being passionate about what I do. Rarely though do I regress back to my early days of sales 101. I prefer relationship, and then business. Sometimes it can be easy to cross that line from an elevator intro into a sales conversation when you know there is a need.
This whole interaction reminded me of a business trueism- people rarely can be persuaded to your point of view, until they feel like they know you. It would have been impossible for me to handle the guy's objections, because he didn't know yet if he could trust my answers. We still didn't really know eachother.
In retrospect, nothing wrong with getting into business conversations with new people you meet, but it's important to not progress farther than the relationship will allow.
A group of us decided to get together for happy hour, and 8 or 10 showed up. Good times. I met a few new people, and had a great time hanging with friends, mostly talking business.
One of the newcomers was a new business owner in town. I'd heard about him through some other contacts and had wanted to get in touch with him to find out what he was doing for his business insurance, a specialty of mine.
We got a chance to meet and chat for a minute or two and I popped the question, " by the way, who do you have taking care of your insurance for the office?" I hoped he would say that he'd not taken care of it- a chance for me to help. Unfortunately, he had already set it up as a requirement of the bank he got his loan through.
Normally, this is the point at which I would gracefully offer myself as a resource if he ever had questions, tell him it's great to meet him, and then transition to talking about some community groups he might be interested in getting involved with, talk with him about his family, and maybe introduce him to others at the event. I'd then make a note in my blackberry later, to follow up on the insurance thing a few months from now- hopefully after I've hung out with him at other events between now and then.
Unfortunately, I was stirred by my sales training of old, and went into a little bit of objection-handling, part of sales 101. I explained to him that even though he already has obtained coverage through someone else, that he still has the freedom to look at other quotes. If our coverage makes more sense, we can easily satisfy the banks requirement- we help people with that all the time. I then went in for an easy close and asked if I could follow up with him to take a look at his current coverage. He declined nicely, but the body language was clear- I'd been one of those annoying sales guys. Yikes.
I'm not sure what got into me. I am often guilty about being passionate about what I do. Rarely though do I regress back to my early days of sales 101. I prefer relationship, and then business. Sometimes it can be easy to cross that line from an elevator intro into a sales conversation when you know there is a need.
This whole interaction reminded me of a business trueism- people rarely can be persuaded to your point of view, until they feel like they know you. It would have been impossible for me to handle the guy's objections, because he didn't know yet if he could trust my answers. We still didn't really know eachother.
In retrospect, nothing wrong with getting into business conversations with new people you meet, but it's important to not progress farther than the relationship will allow.
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